The Truth About Gemma Grey: A feel-good, romantic comedy you won't be able to put down

by Sophie Ranald

  On the other side of the pod of desks, I saw Hermione look up from her screen. The call didn’t take long – just a few minutes – but I knew, watching her, how my own face must have passed from calm to shock, dismay to fear. By the time I replaced the handset, Hermione was hovering next to me.

  “What’s up?” she said.

  I said, “It’s Siobhan.”

  Hermione said, “Oh my God, she’s not... He didn’t...”

  “No,” I said. “It’s not that. Sandra was just calling to let me know that Martine and Ann are happy with the clips we went them. She’s going to confirm by email. But Siobhan isn’t taking part any more. Well, she can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s gone back to him – to Allan, her husband. Sandra didn’t say very much about it, because confidentiality, obviously. But she’s taken her stuff and her kids and left the shelter.”

  The knowledge of what Siobhan had chosen to do stayed with me – of course it did. Not just for the rest of that day, or the rest of that week: I knew that it would always be with me. I’d be doing something completely normal, like buying a coffee on my way to work or listening to music on the Tube, when the memory of her voice and her story would come into my mind. In SpaceNK one lunchtime, when I was browsing new products for my channel, I caught sight of a woman’s face in the mirror, smiling as the make-up artist slicked red gloss on her lips. The dark hair was the same as Siobhan’s, and the freckles were too – but that telltale asymmetry in her face wasn’t there.

  I got into the habit of googling her name, almost every day, to see if there was a news item about her, but there never was. I hoped that Allan would have changed, as he must have promised her he would. Maybe he was having anger management therapy. Maybe the shock of losing his family had made him realise what was at stake. I hoped so, but I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure at all.

  I talked to Raffy about it, one night when we were lying in my bed about to fall asleep, and he told me he felt the same about the things he’d seen in the refugee camps in France. He told me he dreamed about the children he’d met there, and woke up sure that he could smell burning plastic.

  “Then I realise it’s just some dodgy treatment thing you’ve put on your hair,” he said, and I said, “Oi!” and poked him in the ribs with my elbow, and he tickled me, and then the play-fight turned into something else, and we fell asleep, comforted by each other’s warmth.

  In the next few weeks, I worked harder than I ever had in my life. The Clickfrenzy campaign rolled out and was hugely successful. I knew that if my vlog was about nothing but good causes, people would stop watching it, so I did as Sloane suggested and planned a daily Christmas-themed video for Vlogmas, which meant filming every evening after work, but at least I got to eat chocolates from my three different advent calendars for breakfast.

  Although there was no reason not to go home to Hannah’s house in the evenings after work any more, I still spent a few hours in the evenings at Daily Grind, editing and posting my videos and doing what Sloane called “curating my social media”.

  Quite often, Raffy would leave the studio in Shoreditch where he worked and lived and join me. It was the strangest thing – sometimes, I’d be working away, so intently focused on what I was doing that I’d forget he was there, and then his ankle would brush mine under the table or I’d glance up from my work, and there he’d be, concentrating on his laptop screen until he sensed he was being watched, looked up at me and smiled the incredible smile that always made something shift and melt deep inside me.

  When we weren’t working – which wasn’t a lot of the time, in those frenetic first few weeks – we did all the stuff normal couples do. We went to movies, and afterwards Raffy analysed and discussed them from a film-maker’s point of view, and I told him off because we were meant to be having time off. We went to Winter Wonderland and rode on the Ferris wheel, and I filmed myself with the glimmering lights of London behind me for my vlog, and Raffy told me off for the same reason. We cooked random food together in his kitchen or Hannah’s, with varying degrees of success.

  It was, I realised, kind of like the life I’d imagined living with Jack. But in my daydreams it had always been summer, and now it was winter. I’d imagined Jack and me strolling along canal towpaths in the sunshine; Raffy and I hurried through the rain together, our gloved hands intertwined. So it was the same, but also very different – and it didn’t feel like a dream at all. It felt like my life, like both my present and my future, and I knew it was a life that would make me happy.

  I knew it because I didn’t feel I had to pretend with Raffy. There was none of the anxiousness to please I’d felt around Jack; none of the sense of being not-quite-relevant that I’d felt with Charlie. We both knew that however big a part we played in each other’s lives, we weren’t the only thing in them, and that made each other all the more important. I knew that he loved me because I felt worthy of love, and that feeling was thrilling and reassuring, all at once.

  One night in December, we were together at our usual table at Daily Grind, surrounded by the familiar smells of toast and coffee. I wasn’t working – not really, anyway. I was on my YouTube homepage, looking at the numbers. They were changing, and I was watching and waiting.

  Then Raffy looked up from his screen and said, “Oh my God.”

  “What?” I said.

  “I’ve just had an email from the RTS.”

  “The what?”

  “You YouTubers! Honestly, it’s like you’ve been living under a rock,” Raffy teased. “The Royal Television Society. I’ve been nominated for an award. Best documentary, for The Estate We’re In.”

  I jumped up from my chair, almost knocking over both our laptops and coffee mugs, and dashed around the table to hug him. Luke came out from behind the bar and joined us, and we did a bit of a victory dance around the shop.

  “I won’t win, obviously,” Raffy said.

  I said, “I bet you will.”

  “And even if you don’t,” Luke said, “it’ll mean more great exposure for the campaign, and more funds. Maybe we’ll even be able to afford a shit-hot lawyer to take on those bastard developers.”

  And the three of us headed out to the pub to celebrate, and in all the excitement I forgot to keep checking my phone, so SparklyGems’ one millionth subscriber added herself without me even noticing.

  Even though I’d known Raffy for what felt like ages, and been going out with him for more than a month (well, strictly speaking it had been thirty-two days since we first slept together, and that seemed like as good a day as any to think of as our anniversary), I was eager to make a good impression on my first official outing as his girlfriend, in front of all his friends.

  So I spent ages getting ready for Luke’s twenty-seventh birthday party the week before Christmas, although I knew that Raffy had fancied me even when I’d been wearing my work clothes and spent the afternoon hiding in the bathroom. I put my hair up in a messy bun with a sleek plait on one side and filmed myself doing it, because it was day four of Vlogmas and I seriously needed to multi-task to do if I was going to get a video uploaded before setting off for Luke’s flat. I put on the black dress I’d bought for the Clickfrenzy Christmas do and a pair of ankle boots with seriously high heels, which I’d nicked from Mum on my last visit, because Raffy was tall enough for me not to have to worry about shaming him in front of his mates by towering over him.

  I edited my video and uploaded it, and then I went downstairs, reminding myself to pick up the bottle of champagne I’d put in the fridge to chill. I was extracting a carrier bag from the designated drawer, which still bore a curling Post-it note (We try to reduce waste by re-using bags), when I heard the unfamiliar sound of heels treading carefully down the stairs.

  Although she was so small, Amy never, ever wore high-heeled shoes. “You never know when you’re going to have to chase a bad guy,” she’d said once, with her usual indubitable good sense. And Hannah didn’t, either. I’d never asked,
but I’d assumed that it was because she was almost as tall as Richard, and he’d made it plain early on in their relationship that they were unacceptable.

  Hannah was now, though.

  Not just high heels – totally gorgeous gold cage shoes with her toenails painted gold to match – but a cherry-red drapey dress that clashed fabulously with her hair and made her skin look more porcelain-perfect than ever, and scarlet lipstick that made her lips look even fuller and her eyes even greener. It had genuinely never occurred to me before how pretty Hannah was, but it did now.

  “Wow,” I said. “Look at you! Big night out?”

  “Not really,” she said. “Just a friend’s birthday party. Do you think this is totally OTT?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “It’s December, so any party means being a bit OTT, it’s the law. I’m going to a birthday party too, and look at me.”

  I took my bottle of fizz out of the fridge and noticed another, even posher bottle on the shelf next to it.

  “I’ll just grab that,” Hannah said. She smelled as gorgeous as she looked, I noticed as she stretched past me.

  “So where are you off to?” I asked.

  Hannah was wearing blusher – a pretty, peachy coral with a hint of sparkle; I wanted to ask her who it was by, but finding out what her plans were for the evening took precedence – and I could see the natural flush of her skin under it.

  “Just up the road, actually,” she said.

  “Really?” I said. “I’m going just up the road, too. Looks like it’s birthday party central round here tonight.”

  Hannah said, “It’s a friend’s place – well, more an acquaintance, really. I met him when I was delivering leaflets for the Save the Garforth campaign. A few of us at the school have been helping out, because so many of the kids live there and it’s just so awful to think that they might have to move away when they’re doing so well and we just got rated Good by OFSTED. Anyway, my colleague Alice and I went for a sandwich and a pint with a few of the other volunteers afterwards and we got chatting, and one of the organisers invited us all to his birthday party. I kind of feel I need to expand my social circle again, so I said yes. Are you sure the dress doesn’t look stupid?”

  I told Hannah that she looked about as un-stupid as it’s possible for a person to look. And, as we left the house together and I explained how it had happened that we were going to the same party, I found my imagination running away with me a bit. I thought how kind Luke was, how he always made sure that any food left over at the end of every day was delivered to the local homeless shelter and how he paid his staff the London living wage instead of minimum wage, even though he didn’t have to. I remembered what Raffy had told me about Luke’s wealthy background, and I knew that, even though Hannah didn’t really care about money – who can afford to, if they’re a primary school teacher? – she’d been fretting about having to move into key-worker housing once her lawyers and Richard’s finished their negotiations and the house on Manwood Close was sold. I even tried to recall what I’d learned about genetics in GCSE biology, and whether it meant that Luke and Hannah would have adorable red-haired babies.

  And then, just as we turned the corner on to the high street and saw the multi-coloured Christmas lights sparkling in the window of Daily Grind, my imagination suddenly hit an insurmountable barrier.

  I said to Hannah, “But you don’t like coffee.”

  Hannah said, “Correction. Rich made me stop drinking it when he did, because it made him even crankier, and plus it gave him the most awful bad breath. I, on the other hand, totally love the stuff.”

  And she did a little twirl under a streetlight, looking just like the dancing lady emoji in her red dress, and the two of us hurried on down the road as fast as our shoes would let us.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Hi everyone!

  So, this is my second-to-last post of Vlogmas. I can’t believe how it’s flown by! A video every day of December – I never thought I’d manage it, but it’s been so much fun and I’ve loved having all of you along with me on this journey. I’m going to show you a gorgeous, simple festive make-up look in just a minute. It’s sparkly and glowy with red lips and heaps of glitter – basically, it’s Christmas, only on your face.

  But before I start, there’s some stuff I want to say to all of you, because this year has been made as incredible and exciting and special as it has been because of you. When I started this channel, I never thought it would get this big. I never thought I’d have a million subscribers. I’m just totally overwhelmed by how much support and encouragement I’ve had from so many amazing people.

  And it’s because of all of you that I’ve been able to make SparklyGems about far more than the stuff I started posting about. Don’t worry – I’m still going to be showing you amazing beauty products, fashion, even some cooking. I’m getting a bit better at that now! But it’s about other things too – things that matter even more (and make-up matters to me, like, a lot!). Thanks to all of you, I’ve been able to be part of a campaign that’s making an incredible difference, raising money and raising awareness to help women escape from terrifying, dangerous relationships and move on with their lives.

  But if I carry on talking about this stuff for much longer I’m going to cry, and you’ve seen more than enough of me crying on this vlog over the past few months. So, I’ll start with my foundation...

  Significant events at Clickfrenzy were always marked by food. When it was someone’s birthday, the most junior member of their team was dispatched to stock up on pastries, and a Birthday Breakfast was held, with everyone standing around scattering crumbs on the carpet and the birthday person basking briefly in the attention, before we all loaded paper napkins with croissants and doughnuts and carried them off to eat at our desks, continuing the crumb-strewing process over our keyboards.

  The anniversary of the company’s foundation coincided with the annual Away Day, which I hadn’t experienced yet because it fell in April, but which apparently involved a picnic in a mystery location, copious amounts of Pimm’s and, I’d been told, many intra-office relationships getting under way with a drunken shag afterwards.

  Farewells should have been more sombre occasions, but nonetheless they were an excuse for pizza and Prosecco. Everyone gathered in the biggest of the meeting rooms, the table was laden with bottles and Franco Manca boxes, and “For he’s a jolly good fellow” was belted out by the entire company. Unless, of course, the person leaving had been sacked, in which case they departed under a cloud, with no food, drink or song to send them on their way, just their P45 in a plain envelope.

  Today, though, was an honourable discharge, and because it was Christmas Eve, the fizz was flowing with even more speed than usual. It was four o’clock, and already almost dark. The Christmas tree, decorated garishly in the Clickfrenzy colours of orange and silver, winked its lights cheerfully against the window. Sarah, wearing a Santa hat, was several glasses down and even more effusive than usual in her praise of the departing colleague.

  “Today is a sad day for me,” she said. “When we started Clickfrenzy five years ago, it was only me, David in charge of finance, and one young, inexperienced but incredibly talented writer. Since then, we’ve seen the company grow to almost a hundred people, and Jim has grown with us. Under his leadership, the content team has recruited so many amazing people, won prestigious awards, and branched out in directions we would never have expected.

  “And now, the time has come for Jim to move on. Don’t get me wrong – we begged him to stay. We even told him he could go back to producing content about cats, if that was what it took to keep him with us.”

  Everyone laughed, except Harrison.

  “But sadly, there was no holding Jim back. My only consolation is that he isn’t taking his talents off to Boredcubed. No – he’s off to continue the brilliant career he began at Clickfrenzy on the other side of the pond, in New York. I personally know that Jim’s passion, his leadership skills and his ri
gorous pursuit of contagious content will make him as invaluable a member of the team at Slate as he had been here.

  “So let’s all raise a glass to our outgoing Head of Content.”

  Everyone drank and cheered and sang, and I joined in, even though I could hear I was singing out of tune. Jim said a few words, and shed a few tears.

  Then Sarah went on. “Of course, when someone is as big a part of the team as Jim, they leave big shoes to fill. And although she only takes a size four, I know that Hermione will do a formidable job heading up the content team. She’s already been at the forefront of some incredible changes here, including setting up the fledgling campaigns section. I’m sure you all share my view that today, more than ever, it’s vital for us to stand up for what we believe in and produce fearless, compelling content that moves hearts and changes minds. Gemma will be taking that over from Hermione and I’m sure taking Campaigns from strength to strength.

  “Congratulations to you both, and if you know of any turkey activists who want Christmas to happen more often, have a word with Gemma.”

  There was another burst of laughter, and this time Harrison joined in.

  “And in the meantime,” Sarah continued, “enjoy the food and fizz, but please don’t let the festivities spill into the next-door room, or get too raucous, because I’ve got a client meeting at five, for my sins. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas. And thank you all so much for all the hard… What’s that noise?”

  She paused. We could hear a bit of a commotion outside, and suddenly the whole of Clickfrenzy was gathered around the windows, looking out. I joined them, hearing high-pitched shrieking coming from the street below.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Hermoine said.

  I was right at the back of the little crowd, so I couldn’t see anything.